How Do You Pronounce Thiel?

Orpheus10,

There is a slight difference in the pronunciation of TEEL and TEAL but it would take a trained ear (like that of an actor or someone for who English is/was a second language).
TEEL has a long 'e' and TEAL has a long 'e' with a soft 'a'.
It would be like saying MERRY, MARRY and MARY. There is a difference if you were to strive to pronounce them the way they are spelt.
I know it sounds like splitting hairs (hares) but I remember this from some college course.

Split they are but it's amazing how they can dice.
As a youth I always thought it funny how sometimes someone from another country would say something that sounded funny but it was pointed out to me that they were speaking it correctly and it was I who was mangling the word.

All I was doing was pointing out that phonetically speaking, nothing rhymes.
Rhymes are for children and my point was never meant to offend, just to point out that there are lessons from youth that we need to get to keep in touch with from time to time.
That, and nothing more.

As for Learsfool's comment, i think he may be onto something. Subtle differences that some of us 'claim' to hear, which others don't, have led to some very acrimonious debates here, or was it hear.

Yes, a dictionary will give you what is historically the most used pronunciation and/or usage and rate it accordingly with the most used to the least used. Some go even further and state what is the correct pronunciation and what is now accepted. That, and there are only so many ways to define how something is said by way of writing it. But, in speech classes one learns that the human voice is so varied and beautiful and expressive and that there is really only one way, barring geographically induced slang and idioms and therefore dialects, to say something.
Now, that is splitting hairs.